Donald Trump is not the first Republican to call for privatizing infrastructure and returning control to the states, but it hasn't happened yet and it never will.
It will never happen because states don't have that kind of money. This is especially true for small, conservative states that are net receivers of federal tax dollars. These states, such as Mississippi and Alabama, receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes.
Understandably, Republican congressmen from these states are not too keen on Trump's proposal which calls for cutting funding that is already in place.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Tuesday he did not support cutting existing Department of Transportation programs to pay for Trump’s plan. He singled out the Army Corps of Engineers ― which performs critical functions in Mississippi like safeguarding the water supply and flood protection ― as responsible for “vital infrastructure projects that create jobs and help our economy.”
“Well, infrastructure ― a lot of it is transportation,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) added.
Of course. Why would they support a plan that cuts funding for their own districts? They're not going to.
It wasn't a coincidence when Republicans wrote their bills to repeal Obamacare so that their own states would receive more funding while liberal states receive less. It wasn't a coincidence that their tax cut bill redistributes money to their own constituents while raising taxes on liberal states. They know how the world works even if they won't say so explicitly in public. they know Trump's infrastructure plan would screw them.
With all of that said, some Republicans have a slightly more fantastical take on Trump's proposal.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, suggested the Trump administration’s proposal would pay for itself due to the tax revenue captured from additional economic activity.
